<Insert City> Overground

[Waverley125]

now, if we look at London we can clearly see the benefits of having a joined-up railway to operate commuter services from satellitte towns into the city. So would this model not be a good one to apply to other cities. E.g. operated in Leeds by WYPTE, Birmingham by Centro etc?

In the limited cases we have this i.e. the Airedale & Wharfedale lines in Leeds, Birmingham's Cross-city line, they work well and do a great job at encouraging modal shift. Surely this would be a better way of operating than cobbling them together with intercity and regional services (such as Northern also running Blackpool-York and LM running London-Crewe).

Empowering specific regions would then allow them to develop an integrated system on the London model, giving every station a basic quarter-hourly service into the main metropolis.

If we adopted this, you could take a basic framework of, say

Leeds

A&W lines (Skipton/Bradford/Ilkley)
Huddersfield line (Huddersfield/Todmorden)
Harrogate line (Harrogate/York)
York & Selby lines (York/Selby)
Hallam Line (Sheffield via Barnsley)
Pontefract line (Goole)
Askern line (Doncaster via Knottingley)
Wakefield line (Doncaster/Sheffield)
Caldervale line (Bradford/Huddersfield via Halifax)

Manchester

Glossop line (Glossop)
Mid-Cheshire line (Crewe via Northwich/Chester)
Styal Line (Crewe via Airport/Crewe via Cheadle Hulme)
Stoke Line (Stoke on Trent)
Buxton Line (Buxton)
Caldervale line (Blackburn via Burnley)
Preston line (Preston)
Ribble Valley line (Blackburn via Bolton)
Southport line (Wigan Wallgate)
Liverpool Lines (Earlestown/Warrington Central)

 

[Eagle]

A&W lines (Skipton/Bradford/Ilkley)
Huddersfield line (Huddersfield/Todmorden)
Harrogate line (Harrogate/York)
York & Selby lines (York/Selby)
Hallam Line (Sheffield via Barnsley)
Pontefract line (Goole)
Askern line (Doncaster via Knottingley)
Wakefield line (Doncaster/Sheffield)
Caldervale line (Bradford/Huddersfield via Halifax)

As far as I'm aware all of those services are already controlled by WYPTE (Metro). What's your point?

 

[Waverley125]

they're not 'controlled'. WYPTE have basic fares setting and some other piecemeal powers. What i mean is fully turning the service over to be run by the PTE. Local vertical integration, planning and funding. Like london Overground.

 

[Deerfold]

they're not 'controlled'. WYPTE have basic fares setting and some other piecemeal powers. What i mean is fully turning the service over to be run by the PTE. Local vertical integration, planning and funding. Like london Overground.

And what happens at the borders? Do the services just stop? Are people making cross-boarder journeys penalised?

If not, who runs Leeds - Sheffield? Wypte? Sypte?

 

[YorkshireBear]

And what happens at the borders? Do the services just stop? Are people making cross-boarder journeys penalised?

If not, who runs Leeds - Sheffield? Wypte? Sypte?

Exactly, the Leeds Sheffield services can provide 3 types of service. Leeds local, Sheffield local and Leeds-Sheffield.

So i think the way it is works a lot better. I dont think london overground is big enough really to say it is controlled by london PTE......

 

[Deerfold]

Exactly, the Leeds Sheffield services can provide 3 types of service. Leeds local, Sheffield local and Leeds-Sheffield.

So i think the way it is works a lot better. I dont think london overground is big enough really to say it is controlled by london PTE......

And though it does run into Herts, Herts has no PTE.

 

[tbtc]

I seem to remember this post a couple of months ago...

So within the UK at the minute, London Overground is very succesful running services into & around London. Surely then, we should be adopting this model for other areas of the country? Aside from the SPT lines around Glasgow, there's nowhere else I can really think of that has such a system.

Most cities have lines at the start of what we might consider a system-running fast, frequent, clean EMUs e.g. the Airedale & Wharfedale lines in Leeds, the Cross-City line in Birmingham and the Glossop line in Manchester. Yet none of these projects has ever led onto greater development of an electric metro system. Firstly, dooes anybody know the specific machinations and reasons that have stopped it happening, but second, where should we be developing? Personally I can see a few areas:

Greater Manchester

Victoria-Preston via Bolton
Piccadilly-Chester & Crewe via Nortwich
Piccadilly-Liverpool SP via Warrington Central
Hazel Grove-Buxton

West Midlands

Snow Hill-Worcester via Kidderminster
Barnt Green-Worcester via Bromsgrove
Stratford on Avon-Snow Hill
Walsall-Rugeley Trent Valley
New Street-Tamworth/Nuneaton
Leamington Spa-Coventry-Nuneaton

West Yorkshre

Leeds-Harrogate-York
Leeds-Knottingley-Doncaster
Leeds-Wakefield Kirkgate-Sheffield
Wakefield-Rotherham-Sheffield
Leeds-Bradford-Halifax-Huddersfield
Stocksbridge-Sheffield Vic-Worksop-Retford High Level
Sheffield Vic-Rotherham-Doncaster
Sheffield-Staveley-Chesterfield

all of these would focus a transport system tightly & efficiently around one (or, in West Yorkshire's case) two main centres, providing excellent transport links and growth. Not to mention the potential of lines reopened (e.g. Bradford-Sheffield via Heckmondwike or Birmingham New Street-Kings Norton via Moseley.

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=57303

 

[Bald Rick]

London Overground isn't vertically integrated.

And isn't it amazing what you can do when you throw shed loads of money at a relatively small railway.

 

[Eagle]

And isn't it amazing what you can do when you throw shed loads of money at a relatively small railway.

Also bearing in mind that LO consists mainly of the less-intensive orbital routes rather than all the busy radial routes (especially those of SWT, Southern and Southeastern).

 

[mister-sparky]

Also bearing in mind that LO consists mainly of the less-intensive orbital routes rather than all the busy radial routes (especially those of SWT, Southern and Southeastern).

which LO are rumoured to be taking over some of them in the next few years

 

[Bald Rick]

which LO are rumoured to be taking over some of them in the next few years

By 'rumour' I think you mean 'Boris wants to'

 

[WatcherZero]

London Overground isn't vertically integrated.

And isn't it amazing what you can do when you throw shed loads of money at a relatively small railway.

MTR (Hong Kong Railways) are apparently lobbying for a 50-50 joint venture with Network Rail to run the infrastructure on Tfl's behalf.

 

[Waverley125]

well with Leeds-Sheffield I presume that'd be run as a joint operation between SY & WY PTEs. There's also be 'fasts' run by EMT (St Pancras-Leeds), XC (Northeast-Southwest) and any 'Northern Regional' (Leeds-Nottingham) which would have at most 2 intermediate stops.

simples.

 

[YorkshireBear]

well with Leeds-Sheffield I presume that'd be run as a joint operation between SY & WY PTEs. There's also be 'fasts' run by EMT (St Pancras-Leeds), XC (Northeast-Southwest) and any 'Northern Regional' (Leeds-Nottingham) which would have at most 2 intermediate stops.

simples.

Much more complicated examples than that though. What about services that go outside the PTE area. The way northern works at the moment is fine. northern operate the commuter/surburban services out of all northern cities (pretty much)

 

[Clip]

Ahh I love the fantasy railway games on here - well thats how I have come to accept threads like this where the only thought is of 'the plan' without any thought to anything else that also uses the same railway.

I mean what could be better for Britains railways then more fragmentation of services?

 

[12CSVT]

now, if we look at London we can clearly see the benefits of having a joined-up railway to operate commuter services from satellitte towns into the city. So would this model not be a good one to apply to other cities. E.g. operated in Leeds by WYPTE, Birmingham by Centro etc?

In the limited cases we have this i.e. the Airedale & Wharfedale lines in Leeds, Birmingham's Cross-city line, they work well and do a great job at encouraging modal shift. Surely this would be a better way of operating than cobbling them together with intercity and regional services (such as Northern also running Blackpool-York and LM running London-Crewe).

Empowering specific regions would then allow them to develop an integrated system on the London model, giving every station a basic quarter-hourly service into the main metropolis.

If we adopted this, you could take a basic framework of, say

Leeds

A&W lines (Skipton/Bradford/Ilkley)
Huddersfield line (Huddersfield/Todmorden)
Harrogate line (Harrogate/York)
York & Selby lines (York/Selby)
Hallam Line (Sheffield via Barnsley)
Pontefract line (Goole)
Askern line (Doncaster via Knottingley)
Wakefield line (Doncaster/Sheffield)
Caldervale line (Bradford/Huddersfield via Halifax)

Manchester

Glossop line (Glossop)
Mid-Cheshire line (Crewe via Northwich/Chester)
Styal Line (Crewe via Airport/Crewe via Cheadle Hulme)
Stoke Line (Stoke on Trent)
Buxton Line (Buxton)
Caldervale line (Blackburn via Burnley)
Preston line (Preston)
Ribble Valley line (Blackburn via Bolton)
Southport line (Wigan Wallgate)
Liverpool Lines (Earlestown/Warrington Central)

Why not merge Northern, Transpennine and Merseyrail into one franchise

 

[tango602]

How about Bristol Overground?

Bristol Parkway to Keynsham avoiding Bristol Temple Meads
Parson Street to Severn Beach
Pilning to Avonmouth
Pilining to Keynsham
Pilning to Bristol Parkway
Pilning to Parson Street
Portishead Branch (If Reopened)

 

[Gareth]

Why not merge Northern, Transpennine and Merseyrail into one franchise

I think merging Northern and TransPennine is already on the cards. Merging Merseyrail into them is a terrible idea. May as well merge the Tyne and Wear Metro into East Coast while you're at it.

As for GMPTE running the commuter services out of Lime Street, swerve that!

 

[Eagle]

Why not merge Northern, Transpennine and Merseyrail into one franchise

Offtopic, but I saw a report linked here of some consultation the DfT had commissioned an independent group to review the franchise boundaries. The recommendations they came up with were:

• Merge Southern and FCC (already happening)
• Merge GA and c2c (mainly for reasons to do with the limited connectivity of c2c, and the fact that GA might like to pinch some 357s)
• Split LM, with the electric routes going to Virgin WC and the diesel routes going to Chiltern (I suspect that this isn't an optimum division, particularly given the two 153-operated diesel islands in LM's electric patch—although one of those would work nicely with EWR if that goes to Chiltern too)
• Split Northern back into two halves (they spent ages appraising which side each route would go to and ended up with exactly the division between FNW and ATN)
• Split TPE thus:
  — TP North to XC
  — TP South to EMT
  — TP Northwest to the new (read: reinstated) NW franchise
  — Manchester–Scotland to Virgin WC
• Also look into merging the engorged XC franchise with EC as a later stage

This was about two years old; although notice that coincidentally Virgin gets all the 350s, and Chiltern gets the Marston Vale which is to become part of EWR, both decisions that happened long after this document.

 

[tbtc]

• Split Northern back into two halves (they spent ages appraising which side each route would go to and ended up with exactly the division between FNW and ATN)
• Split TPE thus:
  — TP North to XC

That would leave the "east" half of Northern a bit of a small TOC (since it'd be Northern Spirit/ ATN without the Transpennine services)

 

[Eagle]

Here is the document (final recommendations in chapter 6), as originally posted by Class 377/5 in a thread about Thameslink service patterns.